A recipe you HAVE to try!

We live in Texas. Texans LOVE Mexican food. Well, most Texans do. I can't speak for all 23,507,783 of them.....but most Texans LOVE Mexican food.

You know how sometimes you get hung up on the same old recipes, or non recipes? Non recipes are where you start throwing things together and it turns out awesome, but you can't replicate it. I get stuck in ruts. So, I've been thumbing through recipes and I came across this one.

Now, the Minestrone recipe I told you about last Sunday was really, really good. But, this week, I found a recipe that is AWESOME. It's not Minestrone....it's Mexican. Well, actually the name of the recipe is Latin, but it's close. (ok....my sister who taught Spanish for 12 years and studied Latin culture would disagree....but it's pretty close.)

Here it is. I never would have thought to put the sweet potatoes in it, but man, it's DELICIOUS. We had one small bowl of leftovers and Dear Hubby ate them for lunch the next day.

Latin Chicken Crock Pot

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 pounds skinless chicken thighs
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
• 2 large sweet potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
• 1 cup hot salsa (I used one small can Rotel tomatoes)
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3 large cloves garlic, chopped
• lime wedges, for garnish

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet; season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Sprinkle 1/4 cup cilantro over the chicken thighs; brown the chicken in the frying pan, 3 to 5 minutes each side.

Arrange the chicken in the bottom of a slow cooker. Place the sweet potatoes, red bell pepper, and black beans on top of the chicken. Mix together the chicken broth, 1/4 cup cilantro leaves, salsa, cumin, allspice, and garlic together in a bowl; pour into the slow cooker. Set slow cooker to LOW and cook for 4 hours. Garnish with lime wedges to serve.

We served this over rice. Yummo, as Rachel Ray would say!

And, seriously, there is nothing "bad for you" in this. It's almost healthy. And will be, if you serve it over brown rice!


And, here is some info. just for education purposes....

What is the difference between Latino, Latin American, Hispanic and Mexican?



They're all different things, but some people are all three.


Latin/Latino: Someone who speaks a romance language as a mother tongue and has a culture heavily influenced by the Spanish, French, Portuguese or Italians


Latin America: A country in North, Central or South America that speaks French, Spanish, or Portuguese as a mother tongue.


Hispanic: Someone who speaks Spanish as a mother tongue


Mexican: Someone from Mexico.


Example: A person from Mexico is Mexican, Hispanic, Latino, and Latin American


A person from Brazil is Latino and Latin American


A Person from France, Italy or Portugal is just Latin